Monthly Archives: March 2016

I can’t wait for Dahlia season! It’s snowed pretty heavily today in Manchester covering my garden and I’ve been looking out of the window for weeks now wishing for some warm weather so I can get out in the garden. I probably won’t be able to plant Dahlias here in the North of the UK until the end of June, so will probably start last years tubers off in doors towards the end of April.

I moved house last year and went from having a tiny yard, where I had to grow my Dahlias in pots to a huge garden with lots of space. We got the keys in June 2015 and I managed to get my dahlias in the new garden (you can see 2 pics below of the new garden, versus the one pic of the old house yard).

Now I have a big garden to play with, I’ve got a bit excited and ordered 25 Dahlia cuttings from the National Dahlia Collection in the UK. I’m not a massive fan of cuttings and prefer tubers as I’ve found cutting weaker and more slower growing. However the National Dahlia Collection has a huge selection and cuttings are cheaper so I’ve decided to buy from them again. If some of the 25 cuttings don’t grow that well, it won’t matter as I already quite a lot of dahlia tubers from last year.

These are the pictures of the 25 new dahlias I’ve ordered and I can’t wait for them to arrive:

I have recently started collecting a new variety of stem bud vases which I love. They were made by the British company Whitefriars between 196o and 1980 I believe, until the company closed in 1980. I love their uniformity and classic elegance, I think they look modern despite their age, and I just love the fact they’re British as most of my other stem bud vases are most probably made in Europe. The pattern number of this vase is 9566 and so far I believe it comes in 10 colour as follows (message me if you know of more!):

Artic Blue

Ocean Green

Twilight

Flint (clear)

Silver

Aqua

Gold or Amber

Tangerine

Kingfisher blue/dark blue

Sky Blue

I think I have found the first 8 of these colours though it’s hard to tell if my 3 orange ones are different? i.e. I think 2 are Tangerine and 2 are gold? My aqua one had a bad chip. And I haven’t found the last 2 colours yet. I’ve also heard rumours of 2 other colours on glass forums, but seen no evidence to suggest these additional colours were ever produced before the factory closed in 1980.